delusionofgrandeur

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist’s world famous Doomsday Clock has been ’set’ at 7 minutes to midnight since 2002 when the clock moved once again closer to midnight as the USA refused to sign the ABM treaty.

If you don’t already know, the Doomsday Clock is a clock which has a 15 minute marked count towards midnight, since 1949, it has counted down ‘minutes’ until total nuclear war. The idea being, the more minutes before midnight there are, the safer we (probably) are. The clock counts both backwards and forwards depending on the risk of nuclear release. The closest we have ever been to midnight was in 1953 when the USA and USSR tested nuclear weapons within 9 months of each other.

The furthest from midnight was in 1991, just after START was signed when we were at 17 minutes to midnight. Unfortunately, the clock has been ticking towards midnight ever since.

It is pretty much guaranteed that when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists make their announcement on Wednesday 17th January, we will be significantly closer to midnight.

UPDATE: From a BAS Press Release:

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock” on January 17, 2007, to 5 minutes before midnight, the first such change to the Clock since February 2002. The major new step reflects growing concerns about a “Second Nuclear Age” marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing “launch-ready” status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

Presumably the announcement on January 17th with make the above statement ‘official’.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Ramblings.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.